NET rebuilding schools for future resilience

In acknowledging the unease, particularly among those in the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Melissa, the National Education Trust (NET) is reaffirming the unwavering pledge of the Build Back Better programme to provide comprehensive infrastructure support to school environments in order to improve educational delivery.

The programme is aimed at bolstering what is being rebuilt beyond general repairs – a programme running through to 2030 “where, critically, we can strengthen facilities structurally”, says Latoya Harris-Ghartey, executive director of NET.

“Most of our school plants are more than 50 years old,with the decision therefore taken for structural integrity assessments to be done along with engineer reports, recommendations and images being provided. It’s part of the very resilience being built into the programme.”

This has resulted in new building standards for the education sector, with the green-building technology model being adopted. Higher roofs are being constructed for better ventilation and cooling, fans are being provided, electrical systems are being upgraded, and administration and staff rooms are being put in place where they never existed and upgraded where they were.

It is a programme of complete new infrastructure and new classroom blocks being built, with energy conservation and water harvesting also being provided, where possible, as part of the green-building technology. Two schools are initially being targeted for solar energy.

The rebuilding and repair work is being guided by a system of prioritisation, she said. There are 308 schools in Priority One, with 57 schools completed. There are 95 schools that are between 80 per cent and 95 per cent complete and will be ready between now and October, with an additional 34 set to be 80 per cent ready by the end of September.

There are another 24 schools that are between 41 per cent and 60 per cent ready. All 265 schools in Priority Two and 108 in Priority Three are operational, with work continuing.

The executive director noted that all schools will be reopened and that, where infrastructure is not complete, temporary classrooms have been put in place using timber. Tents have also been deployed as well as a number of container classrooms that have been retrofitted with fans and air-conditioning units.

In bolstering building standards, she said, “we continue to work with contractors, the regions and the Ministry of Education in going forward with our plans”.